If ever there was a moment when the birds of that French folly, the hijacking of 1956, were coming home to roost it was now, when prospects of peace seemed closest. The imprisoned leaders of the “exterior” had spent the long hours of confinement following football results, playing ping-pong among themselves (at which Boudiaf emerged the steady champion), listening to records, and endlessly reading. As well as numerous books on Algeria published by the pro-F.L.N. Paris house of Maspéro, they were plentifully provided with works by such diverse writers as Lenin, Sartre, Malraux and Ibn Khaldoun. In the latter months Ben Bella dedicated himself to perfecting his Spanish and classical Arabic, while Ait Ahmed concentrated on English literature. Maintaining from the very earliest days a remarkable constancy of communication with the leadership of the “new exterior” in Tunis, the detainees had only been helped to improve these contacts by de Gaulle’s successive concessions. As 1961 went on they were holding regular telephone conversations with their families abroad, and even with Nasser in Cairo as well as with members of the G.P.R.A. Yet, inevitably, their isolation from many of the true facts of life — particularly the state of war-weariness within the Wilayas — was profound.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 1425